No. 639
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 05, 2022

The First of the Season.

The Earliest Bath of the Year, at Atlantic City
July 5, 2022
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Tag: Broadway

Naughty Anthony.

10/23/2012

Spectacular Scenes & Sights Down on the Jersey Coast

Poster for the 1898 Broadway show "Have You Seen Smith?"

7/17/2012

New York Society Classified.

11/27/2011
 Welcome to the Link Dump, where this week, our Strange Company HQ staffers give a shout-out to Clarence, Iowa!Well, why not.  I'm sure it's a charming place.Where the hell is the Pedro Mountain Mummy?The tomb of King Midas' father.Graham Greene in Mexico.A look at supernatural smells.A German liner goes to war.A woman accused of murdering her sister.A mysterious object named Phoebe is
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Strange Company - 8/21/2026
  [Editor’s note: Guest writer, Peter Dickson, lives in West Sussex, England and has been working with microfilm copies of The Duncan Campbell Papers from the State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia. The following are some of his analyses of what he has discovered from reading these papers. Dickson has contributed many transcriptions to the Jamaica […]
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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
"As his son I am proud of hisefforts to succeed in life"Jefferson Randolph Smith IIIArtifact #93-2Jeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge) oapy's son hires a legal firm to stop the defamation of his father's name. At age 30, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy and Mary's oldest son, was protecting his father's legacy and his mother's reputation from "libel" and scandal. He was also
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
(Illustrated Police News, April 3, 1886.)Agnes Anastasia Long moved out of her parents’ home in East Attleboro, Massachusetts, in April 1882. With her many male suiters, she was considered the black sheep of the family. Her father had enough of her bad behavior and, according to the Boston Herald, “refused to permit her to darken the threshold of his humble home.”She took a job at Streeter
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/22/2026
Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately … Continue reading
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
They Got Hilariously Full. | Independence Day in the Country.

The First of the Season.

First-Bathers

"The water is not a bit chilly, dear," was the exclamation of a tall, buxom-looking blonde attired in a dark-blue bathing suit trimmed in red, as she held out her hand invitingly to her companion, a petite maiden, who stood hesitatingly on the beach at Atlantic City.

"Well, here I come," said the doubtful bather, and with several dainty jumps she reached the outstretched arms of her friend. In a moment both had turned their right shoulders against a breaker which was about to roll over them. For a quarter of an hour, these brave sea nymphs sported in the water gleefully. attesting by their antics that they were comfortable. A crowd had gathered on the beach to see the first women bathers of the season, and as far as known the first on the Atlantic coast. When the dripping maidens walked leisurely to the beach and buried themselves in a mound of sand they were instantly surrounded by a group of ladies who somewhat annoyed the bathers with foolish questions. They avoided any extended dissertation on early bathing, answering questions in monosyllables. giving their experience in the few expressive words: "The water is pleasant, if not delightful."

The young ladies who have set the whole island agog are Miss Elizabeth Price and her friend, Miss Marian E. Smith, of Philadelphia, ladies who are both guests at the Seaside House. The young ladies are both pretty.


National Police Gazette, June 26, 1886.